The Paradox of Diversity: Why does Interethnic Contact in Voluntary Organizations not lead to Generalized Trust? (IMISCOE Research Series)

"This book is about ethnic diversity in voluntary organizations and seeks to explain whether intergroup contact contributes to the development of generalized trust. It relies on a novel multilevel design and data from Amsterdam in which 40 voluntary organizations and 463 participants have been sampled. Contrary to conventional wisdom, this book argues that cognitive processes are contributing more toward the evaluation of strangers or generalized trust than interethnic contact. Since trusting unknown people is essentially a risky endeavor, this suggests that participants of both association types who report trusting strangers can afford to do so, because they are better educated, have a more positive worldview, and have had fewer negative life experiences. That is to say, they are socially more successful and view their future as more promising. Previous findings are inconclusive since most studies that conclude diversity has led to less generalized trust do not include interethnic contact directly in their analyses. These studies also downplay the importance of cognitive processes, which may shape generalized trust. What is more, people join ethnically diverse civic groups, because they already have more trustful attitudes, rather than learning to trust through interethnic contact. Despite the recent multiculturalist backlash, this book demonstrates that participation in ethno-national organizations does not pose a threat to social cohesion. The analysis in this book serves to build a general theory of trust that moves beyond emphasizing interaction between people who are different from each other, but one that includes the importance of cognition"- - Springer Acknowledgments 6 Contents 8 List of Figures 11 List of Tables 13 1 Introduction: Why this Book? 15 1.1 What Is Generalized Trust and Why Study It in Voluntary Organizations? 18 1.1.1 Generalized Trust 18 1.1.2 Ethno-national Associations: The ‘Dark Side’ of Civic Participation? 21 1.2 Which Factors Explain Generalized Trust? State of the Art 23 1.2.1 The Contact Hypothesis 23 1.2.2 Country Differences 25 1.2.3 Ethnic Diversity in Neighborhoods 26 1.2.4 Types of Associations 27 1.2.5 Individual Level Effects 31 1.3 Why Study Bridging and Bonding in Amsterdam? 33 1.3.1 Multiculturalism in Amsterdam and Ethno-national Associations 35 1.3.2 Why Study Turkish Organizations as an Example of Bonding? 37 1.3.3 Research Design: Comparative Case Study with a Nested Large N 38 1.4 Outline 39 References 41 2 Bridging Versus Bonding Practices: Setting the Context 49 2.1 Methodological Considerations 49 2.1.1 Selecting Organizations and Participants 49 2.1.2 Toward an Interview Guide 52 2.1.3 Sample Size Multilevel Designs 53 2.1.4 Toward a Questionnaire 54 2.2 Organizational Characteristics 57 2.2.1 Ethnic Composition 57 2.2.2 Type of Organization 59 2.2.3 Location 61 2.2.4 Size 62 2.3 The Spectrum of Activities and Contact Within Organizations 63 2.3.1 Kinds of Activities of Organizations 64 2.3.2 Frequency of Activities 67 2.3.3 Interethnic Contact 67 2.3.4 Close Ties 70 2.4 Bridging and Bonding Organizational Network Gaps 71 2.4.1 Overlapping Board Membership Network 72 2.4.2 Collaboration Network 73 2.4.3 Funding 76 2.4.4 Multiple Memberships and Volunteering 77 2.5 Summary 79 References 80 3 Generalized Trust: Socialization Through Interethnic Contact? 83 3.1 Variance Analysis 84 3.1.1 Fixed Effects Model of Generalized Trust 86 3.1.2 Multilevel Model of Generalized Trust with Random Effects 88 3.1.3 Testing for the Interethnic Contact Mechanism 89 3.2 Controlling for Socio-demographic Factors 91 3.2.1 Descriptive Statistics 92 3.2.2 The Fixed Effects and Random Intercept Model of Generalized Trust 93 3.2.3 Level of Diversity in Organizations 97 3.3 Ties Within and Beyond the Organization 99 3.3.1 Close Ties 99 3.3.2 Ties Beyond the Organization 100 3.4 Summary 105 References 106 4 Who Can Afford to Evaluate Strangers as Trustworthy? 107 4.1 What Is Generalized Trust? 107 4.1.1 Particularized Trust and Generalized Trust 108 4.1.2 Generalized Trust and Trust Toward Strangers 110 4.1.3 Prejudice and Generalized Trust 112 4.2 Generalized Trust and Negative Life Experiences 114 4.2.1 The Factor Scales: Life Satisfaction, Optimism and Self-esteem 114 4.2.2 Generalized Trust: A Psychological Explanation 117 4.3 Generalized Trust and Norm-Driven Explanations 119 4.3.1 Factor Scales: Individualism and Humanitarianism 120 4.3.2 Generalized Trust: A Norm-Driven Model? 122 4.4 The Final Model 127 4.5 Summary 129 References 131 5 Discussion and Conclusion: The Promise of Social Success 132 5.1 Discussion of Key Results: On Interethnic Contact and Generalized Trust 132 5.1.1 Bridging Versus Bonding in Voluntary Organizations? 132 5.1.2 Disentangling Causality 135 5.1.3 What About Other Contextual Effects? 137 5.2 Alternative Explanations: Beyond Bridging and Bonding 139 5.2.1 Validating Generalized Trust 140 5.2.2 Alternative Explanations 141 5.3 Implications and Looking into the Future 144 5.3.1 Policy Implications 145 5.3.2 Limitations and Future Avenues of Research 146 References 148 Index 152 Front Matter....Pages i-xiv Introduction: Why this Book?....Pages 1-34 Bridging Versus Bonding Practices: Setting the Context....Pages 35-68 Generalized Trust: Socialization Through Interethnic Contact?....Pages 69-92 Who Can Afford to Evaluate Strangers as Trustworthy?....Pages 93-117 Discussion and Conclusion: The Promise of Social Success....Pages 119-138 Back Matter....Pages 139-145